After the American Revolution, the Wabanaki suffered from poverty, discrimination, and displacement.

Native American people were forced to surrender their land to the new American government. Hunting ground was turned into farmland, and the Wabanaki could no longer survive by hunting, trapping, fishing, and migrating with the seasons.

This letter describes the attempts of a missionary to teach the Wabanaki how to become farmers. He writes, "they should settle, and cultivate their land - have a school for their children, & live like white people."

Living within the new American society was a difficult adjustment for Native people. Some found work in logging, camps, factories, and shipbuilding; but this new way of life was very far removed from their native roots of sustainability and living from the earth.

It was difficult for Maine's Wabanaki to survive in this new society that valued wealth and possessions over all else.

This letter from Rev. Oliver Brown of Maine, Nov. 17, 1825, to Rev. Abiel Holmes of Cambridge, Massachusetts, discusses a school building on a Native American reservation. Formal schooling, like farming, was thought to help the Wabanaki "live like white people."

Children living in rural communities attented schools in private homes, churches, or buildings that had been converted from other uses.

It was not always easy for children to get to school when travel included a wagon or sleigh ride over several miles. Some communities built several school houses. Fryeburg, for example, had fourteen in 1825.

Many of Maine's earliest educational institutions including community schools, universities, and even libraries, were funded by tuition fees. Maine did not provide any state funding for schools until 1828.